Aftermath of Andrew Young Affair: Blacks, Jews and Carter All Could Suffer Greatly

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WASHINGTON, Sept. 5 — Three groups — blacks, Jews and the Carter Administration — potentially could suffer major damage in the controversy prompted by the resignation of Andrew Young as chief delegate to the United Nations, according to a range of persons close to the matter.

In a series of interviews in the last two weeks, Jews said they feared that statements by blacks critical of Jews might set off a wave of anti‐Semitism and make it harder for the United States to continue its support of Israel; black organizations said they had been threatened with the loss of contributions by some Jews who in the past have given heavily to civil rights causes; and President Carter, already in trouble with both groups in his bid for reelection, continued to draw blame from both sides for his policies and actions.

Mr. Young's resignation Aug. 15, which followed the disclosure that he had misled the State Department about an unauthorized meeting he had had with the Palestine Liberation Organization's observer at the United Nations, triggered the airing of long‐smoldering disagreements between the two groups. Black leaders, acting out of the belief that the White House had yielded to Jewish pressure to dismiss Mr. Young, used the occasion to declare their independence from their Jewish supporters on foreign policy, including the Palestinian issue.

Jewish leaders, denying that any major Jewish organization had sought Mr. Young's dismissal, responded with a flurry of statements contending that their position had been misrepresented.

Rabbi Alexander M. Schindler of New York, president of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, declared: “Black leaders have allowed themselves to be distracted from the stark reality that the Administration which let Andrew Young go has also failed blacks and Jews and all who believe in economic justice and compassion for the poor.”

During the past few days, leaders of moderate black and Jewish organizations have been conferring in an effort to cool the controversy, and they say they have some hope of restoring friendly relations in areas where there is an agreement on goals — civil liberties, housing and minority rights, for example. Some of those leaders and President Carter's advisers say it is possible the President could regain much of the support he has lost in both groups before the 1980 election.

Black leaders are nearly unanimous in saying the controversy was helpful in establishing their right to express dissenting views on foreign policy without endangering their domestic aspirations, and there is some agreement from both sides that bringing the long‐festering grievances into the open may lead to better relations in the long run.

Yet the dispute has aroused such passions and some of the disagreements go so deep that there is considerable pessimism on both sides about the prospect that the two groups will again work in tandem, as they have in the past on a range of issues.

So intense are the emotions on both sides that some Jewish leaders have suggested that discussions between the twc groups be “brokered” by a disinterested third party for the purpose of finding grounds for agreement.

Both sides express concern about the future financing of civil rights organizations and other black causes. In the past, even when blacks and Jews were at odds over affirmative action programs to increase employment and educational opportunities for minorities, a substantial part of the funds raised by such groups as the National Urban League and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People came from Jewish contributors.

Both Hyman Bookbinder, Washington representative of the American Jewish Committee, and Howard Squadron, president of the American Jewish Congress, said their organizations had discouraged any reduction of contributions to black groups.

Yet a number of leaders in both camps said at least a temporary decline in Jewish contributions to black causes was to be expected, just as there was a drop in Jewish contributions to the American Civil Liberties Union when it supported the right of a Nazi organization to conduct a march in Skokie, Ill., a town with a large Jewish population.

“But that was only temporary,” said one Jewish leader. “Most Jewish support of the A.C.L.U. has been restored, and expect the black situation to follow the same pattern.”

After black civil rights leaders met with the P.L.O. and expressed support for the Palestinians there was speculation that Arab interests might make substantial contributions to some black organizations. Yet there has been no indication that this has happened, according to sources with black and Arab contacts.

“The Young affair has been a painful experience for many of us,” said Mr. Bookbinder, who has long been known in Washington as a moderate. “By far the most painful aspect of it is the potential for the emergence of rampant black antiSemitism because of some of the outrageous things that some blacks have been saying. Some of it is out‐and‐out antiSemitism.”

Mr. Bookbinder and a number of other Jewish leaders expressed the feeling that the criticism leveled at Jews by blacks, much of it complaining that they had been prevented in the past by Jewish interests from speaking out on foreign policy, if continued could to lead to more acute criticism of Jews and set off a wave of anti‐Semitism.

One of the ironies of the situation was that the warring sides both blamed the Carter Administration for much of the ill feeling. Mr. Squadron said that President Carter, by remaining silent on the issue as he traveled down the Mississippi River, had failed to abolish the misconception that Mr. Young was forced to resign because of Jewish pressure.

Mr. Squadron complained that even after Mr. Carter decided to address the issue and made an appeal for Jewishblack reconciliation at Emory University in Atlanta Aug. 30 he did not explain the circumstances of the resignation.

“We knew long knives were out in the State Department for Andy Young,” Mr. Squadron said, and he pointed out that Mr. Young had said he decided on his own to resign after confessing that he failed to tell the State Department “the whole truth” about his meeting with Zehdi Labib Terzi, the P.L.O. observer at the United Nations.

Blacks, on the other hand, felt that despite the public statements from Administration officials pressure from American Jews and Israel was at the root of Mr. Young's departure and they blamed Mr. Carter for yielding to that pressure.

A spokesman for the White House said that although the subject was often discussed at meetings it was concluded that there was little Mr. Carter could do about the situation.

The late‐summer dispute was viewed as part of a larger political phenomenon — the coming apart of old coalitions and voting blocs whose performance in elections and approaches to the issues are no longer as predictable as they once were. In the past five Presidential elections, blacks and Jews have voted overwhelmingly for the Democratic candidate. Even in 1972, when Richard M. Nixon won reelection by a landslide, about 66 percent of the Jews and 87 percent of the blacks voted for Senator George McGovern, the Democratic nominee.

Mr. Bookbinder made the point that most Jews do not choose between candidates solely on the basis of the Israel question, that both Republican and Democratic contenders usually have been similar in their support of Israel and the choice has then rested largely on leadership ability, issues, party and other factors. That could happen again in 1980, some leaders said.

Clarence Mitchell, former Washington director of the N.A.A.C.P., said that, barring a challenge by Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, President Carter probably would wind up with most of the black support in the 1980 election, despite growing disaffection with his Administration.

Nevertheless, some leaders said that major changes have been taking place in black‐Jewish relationships and their political alliances. The emotional outburst set off by the resignation of Ambassador Young, one of the most prominent blacks in Government, who had become a highly provocative public official, stems from deep frustrations on both sides.

The protest of American blacks against racial injustice has been trying to break out of the nation's boundaries much longer than most Americans realize, the leaders said. At the height of the voting rights march in Selma, Ala., in 1965, the late Martin Luther King Jr. and his aides talked about eventually moving the movement, which had adapted the nonviolent tactics of Mohandas Gandhi, to South Africa. Black opposition to the Vietnam War was based in part on the belief the United States would not be conducting such a war against a white nation.

During the 1970's, the black movement directed much of its efforts toward increasing Federal spending for the poor, even as many of its white allies were casting doubt on the effectiveness of Federal programs and as many other interest groups — the elderly, women, the handicapped, veterans, cities, counties, various sectors of the middle‐class and others — were entering the competition for Federal dollars. President Carter's budget restraints further added to the frustration of black leaders.

A promising outlet was in foreign affairs. Mr. Young's appointment to the post at the United Nations was seen as means of broadening the movement under the theme of universality in human rights that Dr. King had advocated. A number of blacks followed Mr. Young into the Government, taking some key positions, most on African affairs, in the State Department and in the Peace Corps.

Last spring, blacks set up a Washington lobby called TransAfrica under the chairmanship of Mayor Richard G. Hatcher of Gary, Ind., said to be the first such black foreign policy lobby. Although its main concern to date has been its efforts to isolate South Africa and retain United States sanctions against Rhodesia, some leaders say they now see it as a counter‐force to the Israeli lobby. A few days after Mr. Young resigned, TransAfrica issued a statement calling for a Palestinian state and charging Israel with “growing intimacy” with South Africa. Israel is one of a number of countries that maintain diplomatic and trade relations with white‐ruled South Africa.

The resignation of Mr. Young was viewed by both moderate and militant blacks as a symbol of the extent of opposition to the emergence of a strong black foreign policy position. With that hurt still fresh in their minds, black leaders have been saying that the sources of funding for their organizations, their long allegiance to liberal Democrats and their relations with other minority groups are subject to change.

Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the N.A.A.C.P., for example, has been telling black audiences that some Republican Presidential candidates have good enough records on racial issues to merit black endorsement and unless blacks receive greater cooperation from President Carter, “I'm going to find somewhere else to take my vote.”

So has the Jewish community undergone changes.

Aside from mounting disagreements between the Jewish organizations and the Administration on Middle East policy, Jews have been disturbed by the dependence of the United States on the Arab states for oil and the inability of the Government to enact a strong energy policy that would decrease that dependence.

David Cohen, president of Common Cause, a national lobby that seeks Government reforms, said in a speech to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem July 12 that the current “politics of the special interest state” in which competing interests prevent formulation of overall goals presents “an unhealthy situation for the Jewish interests.”

We have not recovered from the disastrous defeat on the sale of military weapons to Saudi Arabia,” he said. “I don't say it was a disastrous defeat because a vote was lost in the Senate. That is bad, but we would have recovered. It was disastrous because the case against weapons did not come through as a pro‐peace move for the Middle East.

“That humbling political defeat has made us turn more inward. As Jews we are not sailing against the prevailing winds of American politics as we did in the past. We are giving in to them. The more preoccupied Americans are with the politics of special interest, the more difficult it is for Jewish views to influence the result of important Jewish matters, including those affecting the Middle East.”

At the same time, there have been domestic issues that have divided Jewish leaders and alienated blacks.

Joseph L. Rauh Jr., a Washington lawyer and a long‐time advocate of liberal causes, stuck with blacks throughout the long, bitter controversy over “affirmative action” in hiring and educational admissions. Five years ago he was lecturing fellow Jews against “the slow but perceptible swing of the Jewish community to the right.”

In assessing the controversy over Mr. Young's resignation, he said that although other factors were involved, Jewish organizations had made a “monumental mistake” by taking the position that Federal affirmative action practices amounted to establishment of quotas that could be harmful to minorities.

“They made it a Jewish‐black issue when it really was a white‐black issue,” Mr. Rauh said. Leaders of the Anti‐Defamation League of B'nai B'rith and others disagreed, saying that because of the Jewish experience with quotas they could take no other position.

Leaders on both sides pointed out that neither Jews nor blacks form monolithic communities and that political parties and the candidates have been engaged in new efforts to gain supporters from both.

A spokesman for the Republican National Committee said the party had stayed out of the dispute over Mr. Young, “but if Carter is the Democratic nominee in 1980 we have gained by it.”

A version of this archives appears in print on September 6, 1979, on Page A18 of the New York edition with the headline: Aftermath of Andrew Young Affair: Blacks, Jews and Carter All Could Suffer Greatly. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe